When Abba Sophronius and I were in Alexandria...

…one day we went to the Church of St. Theodosios. A bald man came towards us who was wearing sack cloth down to his knees. He seemed to be insane. Abba Sophronius said to me, “Give me a coin and you shall see the virtue of the man who is approaching us.” I gave him five copper coins which he took and gave to the one who seemed to be insane. He received them without a word. Keeping ourselves out of sight, we followed him. When he had turned the street corner, he stretched out his right hand in which he held the coins towards heaven, held it up high, and then prostrated himself before God. Then, he went his way, leaving the coins on the ground.

John Moschus, Leimonarion (The Spiritual Meadow) 111

A brother who had withdrawn from the world...

…and taken the monastic habit shut himself up immediately, saying, “I am now an anchorite.” When they heard him say this, the old men came to drive him away and made him go the round of all the brethren’s cells, bowing before them and saying, “Forgive me, for I am not an anchorite, but a beginner.”

An anchorite was living close to a monastery...

…and he led a very austere life. Now it happened that some visitors came to the monastery and constrained him to eat outside the proper time. Afterwards the brothers said to him, “Abba, were you not grieved by that?” He said to them, “I am grieved only when I do my own will.”

Amma Syncletica said...

…”Just as a treasure that is exposed tarnishes and loses its value, so a virtue which is known vanishes; just as wax melts when it is near fire, so the soul is destroyed by praise and loses all the results of its labor.”

Abba Macarius of Alexandria heard...

…that the Tabennesiotes (disciples of St. Pachomius) had a great way of life, so he changed his clothes, assumed the appearance of a laborer, and traveled for fifteen days into the Thebaid, going into the desert. Arriving at the monastery of Tabennisi, he sought out their archimandrite Pachomius, a most worthy man who had the gift of prophecy. Pachomius did not know Macarius, who upon meeting him said, “I beg you, receive me into your hermitage that I may become a monk.”

Pachomius said to him, “You come here already an old man; you cannot practice the ascetic life. The brethren are ascetics and you cannot bear their labors. You will be embarrassed and leave, and will revile them.” Nor did he receive him on the first day or the second, but not until the seventh.
After he had stood his ground with perseverance and in fasting, he said, “Receive me, Father. If I do not fast and work along with them, order me to be expelled.”

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Repentance, Mourning, Humility

Repentance raises a man up. Mourning knocks at heaven’s gate. Holy humility opens it.

St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent